Making Goals for Practicing

This is a chart I like to use when I feel like my daughter needs some intrinsic motivation to practice.  I like this chart because I can focus on other things besides the specific practice points that I would use on a regular practice guide.  Here are some ideas I've used and thought of to put on this chart.  Do you have any others?

• Get your violin out without being asked
• Play through {this} piece remembering all the repeats
• Remind mom to practice
• Practice happily
• Put rosin on your bow
• Practice all of your review pieces (this may take a day or two or three)
• Put away your violin after practice
• Perform your new piece for someone (dad, grandma, etc.)
• Practice everything on your chart
• Remember to say "thank you" after your lesson
• Practice your scales & warm-ups without complaining
• more?

You can download this chart here.

Enhance Practice with a Cube Timer

Yesterday I shot this quick video during my daughter's practice.  I didn't have time to clean up or do my hair and make-up, it's a raw video, but that is because I had to catch this girl in the moment.  Emma was practicing so well and I went in to check up on her and she had this set up with three different cube timers and a bead counter.  She was practicing spots slowly and over and over and organizing her practice so she could get everything done.  Here it is - it's only 1:15 minutes long.  Enjoy!

Here is another post about the cube timer.

  

Caroline's Crazy Game

Now that school has started it's nice to get into a good routine of practicing again.  My 5-year-old is in half-day Kindergarten which is perfect for a young Suzuki student because we have all morning free to get our practicing done.  It makes my heart smile when I hear my five-year-old going through all her pieces for fun, even if I haven't asked her to.  She loves to play the violin!  I believe this is why it's important to leave the violins out where they can pick them up and play them anytime.

I made this game months ago.  After several days of productive practice, we'll pull out this game as her "reward" for good practicing.  This has a lot of squares specific to what we are working on.  What she likes about it is all the pictures of the dice we use during practicing.  She LOVES to roll the dice!  We get some review done with the Book 1 review dice and Twinkle dice.  We play Roll-10 when she lands on the notes dice.  When she lands on the eighth note we do a little bit of note reading.  Her favorite is making a silly face whenever she passes the silly face halfway through the board.  It's just a silly little game, but it's a great reward practice session!

I have both Caroline's Crazy Game and a blank Crazy Practice Game available to download online.  I laminated my board so we can use and reuse it over and over again without it getting too trashed.  I love these games!